The Lexmark Z1300 ($25 street) isn't the first Lexmark printer that costs less than a full set of cartridgesthat honor belongs to the now-defunct Z611. But the Z1300 is a lot faster than the Z611 was, and the cost for the printer itself works out to just six dollars$3 less than the Z611. That makes the Z1300 nearly free. It's also an even better choice than the Z611 was if you need an essentially disposable printer for home or light-duty home office use or to fill in during an emergency.

//Compare Similar Products

As with the Z611, the Z1300 manages to be cheaper than its cartridges by being able to print with just a tricolor cartridge, and not including a black cartridge in the box. If you take advantage of Lexmark's return program to recycle the cartridges, the tricolor cartridge by itself is $18.99 direct. (If you don't recycle, the cartridge is $22.99, so you could argue that the printer itself is only $2. But that's just too ridiculous to contemplate.)

The standard-capacity black cartridge for the printer is $17.99, so a complete set of cartridges is $36.98$12 more than the printer. You can also get high-yield cartridges for both black ($24.99 direct) and tricolor ($29.99 direct), for a higher cost per cartridge but lower cost per page, and a photo cartridge ($24.99 direct) to swap out with the black cartridge, so you can print photos with six colors instead of four.

I ran our business applications suite with the tricolor and black cartridges, and ran our photo suite with the tricolor and photo cartridges. Both speed and quality are likely to be different if you print with just the tricolor cartridge.

Setup is essentially standard for a printer that connects by a USB cable. Simply insert the ink cartridge or cartridges, connect the cable and power cord, and run the installation program. One extra step, which is rare in today's printers, is that you have to run a manual alignment routine, which consists of printing an alignment page, picking the best alignment in each of seven sets of samples, and entering your choices into the driver. Cutting this particular corner is forgivable in a printer at this price, but it's still a bit of a chore to have to align the printer every time you change a cartridge. More troublesome, picking the right settings on the alignment page is harder than with most other manual alignment routines I've seen.

Speed is one of the things I don't expect from a low-cost printer. In that context, the Z1300 did reasonably well, taking a total 35 minutes 3 seconds on our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software). That's not speedy by any stretch of the imagination, but it's almost twice as fast as the Z611 was, at 60:08, and it's within striking distance of the 32:18 total for the relatively inexpensive HP Deskjet F380 All-in-One (which would probably be close in price to the Z1300 if it didn't include a scanner.) Speed for photos averaged a relatively slow 4:29 for 4-by-6s and 10:15 for 8-by-10s.

At this price, the bar for output quality is set pretty low as well, but the Z1300 doesn't deliver any more than the minimum necessary to keep from ruling itself out of contention. Text quality is way below par even for an ink jet, with most of the fonts in our test suite needing a minimum of 8 points to count as easily readable and 10 points to count as well-formed. I'd call it good enough for school, home, or internal business use, but not something I'd want to send to a business contact when it was important to project a sense of professionalism.

Graphics quality is also below par for an ink jet, but by only a little. Most of the output in default mode showed obvious banding as well as dithering in the form of obvious graininess. On the other hand, both issues all but disappeared in high-quality mode. Thin lines tended to disappear in both modes, which is a common issue with printers at any price. Count the graphics as easily good enough for schoolwork and most internal business use, but short of the quality you'd probably want for, say, PowerPoint handouts.

Photos are also below par for an ink jet, but that still translates to near photo quality. Among other issues, I saw minor banding, a loss of the subtle shading that gives rounded objects a sense of three-dimensionality; and a severe problem with color balance for a monochrome test photo, with distinctly different color tints at different shades of gray. In addition, some memory colorsof an apple, for examplewere shifted beyond a range that I consider acceptable. (Memory colors are colors that are familiar enough that people pretty much know what they should look like. The color of grass-green and sky-blue, for example, are both memory colors. If you see a photo with either or both, you can tell whether the colors are reasonable. In contrast, if you see a photo of, say, an assortment of sweaters, you have no idea if the colors are right, because you have no way of knowing what color the sweaters actually are.) A more important issue with photos is that they aren't even slightly water-resistant. Touch them with moist fingers, even after they've dried, and you'll smudge the image. Call them good enough for hanging on a refrigerator door or bulletin board, but nowhere near good enough for storing precious memories.

Despite its shortcomings, the Lexmark Z1300 can handle things like schoolwork or casual home and light-duty home office use. If you don't print a lot and aren't picky about quality, it may serve your purposes. And if you need a printer in an emergencybecause your real printer has just died, for exampleit's a good candidate as a cheap, disposable, temporary solution.

M. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a...

Automatic Renewal Program: Your subscription will continue without interruption for as long as you wish, unless
you instruct us otherwise. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of the term unless you authorize
cancellation. Each year, you'll receive a notice and you authorize that your credit/debit card will be charged the
annual subscription rate(s). You may cancel at any time during your subscription and receive a full refund on all
unsent issues. If your credit/debit card or other billing method can not be charged, we will bill you directly instead. Contact Customer Service